© Unsplash/Crowdstrike
On July 19, a global computer outage hit millions of Windows computer users, causing major disruptions in many organizations. After a week of investigation, the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, at the origin of this disruption, has finally lifted the veil on the causes of this technical incident with considerable consequences.
In an incident report published on July 24, CrowdStrike acknowledged that the outage was caused by a defect in its testing software. This bug, which initially went unnoticed, spread through an update to its flagship software, Falcon, used by companies around the world to detect and counter computer threats.
“Due to a bug in the validation program, one of the two updates was validated even though it contained problematic data”, the company explained in its report. According to figures confirmed by Microsoft and CrowdStrik, this error affected approximately 8.5 million devices.
The devastating consequences of a faulty update
The impact of this outage was felt globally, affecting a wide range of organizations and industries. From airlines to hospitals, factories and hotels, many large organizations were paralyzed by this technical malfunction.
Affected users experienced what are commonly referred to as 'blue screens of death', a term well known to Windows users for a critical system error. In this specific case, these blue screens made restarting devices impossible, plunging many companies into a crisis situation.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000The scale of the outage underlines our society's increasing dependence on digital technologies and highlights the potential vulnerability of interconnected systems. A simple bug in security software was enough to disrupt the operations of thousands of businesses around the world, demonstrating the importance of reliable cybersecurity tools.
Changes to come
Faced with this major incident, CrowdStrike has announced changes to the way it handles updates. The company said it will now take a more gradual approach to rolling out its updates. day. This new strategy aims to enable early detection of possible problems before they spread on a large scale.
“In the future, we will change the way we handle updates to avoid this type of incident”, a CrowdStrike said in its report. Crowdstrike also warned its customers that malicious actors were trying to take advantage of the situation.
These explanations, although more precise, do not completely relieve the company of its burden. Regulators want more explanations, particularly on how Crowdstrike managed the different stages of control. He will therefore have to respond soon to the response from the American Congress.
- Crowdstrike finally gives more explanations on the July 19, 2024 global outage
- 8.5 million Windows devices were affected
- The company will change its procedures but will still have to explain itself to the American Congress
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